Moody Tongue beers to debut at beer-focused restaurants

Jared Rouben, the owner and brew master of the new Moody Tongue brewery located at 2136 S Peoria in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.

Jared Rouben, the owner and brew master of the new Moody Tongue brewery located at 2136 S Peoria in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. (Kaitlyn McQuaid/Redeye)

Josh Noel, Tribune Newspapers

The city's first "culinary" brewery is set to debut, but don't expect its ingredient-heavy beers on liquor store shelves or at most bars. Moody Tongue beers, appropriately enough, will be on tap at the city's most adventurous restaurants.

Brewery founder Jared Rouben said his first kegs are headed to restaurants that include The Publican, Dusek's, Vie, Old Town Social, Hot Chocolate, Nightwood, GT Fish & Oyster, Longman & Eagle and The Bristol.

Though he plans to package Moody Tongue within the year, most likely in bottles, Rouben said he wants to debut at forward-thinking, beer-focused restaurants. It's an unlikely route to Chicago's craft beer scene: jumping right onto many of the biggest stages in town.

"We're sourcing from the same farmers as these chefs," Rouben, 32, said. "We're handling the ingredients in a similar fashion. There's an effort to create balance from these ingredients, which is the same goal shared by many chefs."

The first Moody Tongue beers are expected to be available by early June: a Belgian golden ale with cold-pressed pawpaw (a fruit reminiscent of mango, papaya and pineapple) and a wheat beer with crushed green coriander, which "has the aromatics of Fruit Loops." Rouben plans to begin brewing this week with a custom 20-barrel system at the Moody Tongue brewery in Pilsen, at 2136 S. Peoria St.

Moody Tongue's lofty roster of tap handles stems from the 21/2 years Rouben spent as brewmaster of the Goose Island brewpubs, when he collaborated with Chicago chefs, including Rick Bayless, Stephanie Izard and Paul Kahan, to brew beers featuring fresh farmers market ingredients.

The results were inventive and varied, including baby carrot Belgian wit, rhubarb saison and a helles lager infused with smoked apple tree wood. Other food-centric beers he created at Goose Island included a wild strawberry saison and a Belgian dark ale with brandy-soaked cherries, burnt orange peel, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

"Once you spend eight hours brewing together, creating a recipe and sharing the product with your guests, you create a bond," Rouben said. "I'm incredibly fortunate to have worked with the people I have worked with."

Rouben began in the industry as a chef, graduating from the Culinary Institute of America and working at restaurants in New York and Napa Valley.

Since leaving Goose Island, he has taught beer education seminars to restaurant staffs, including at many of the places where Moody Tongue will be poured, to discuss "beer, the brewing process and the language of food," including pairing food and beer.

Jared Wentworth, chef and partner at Longman & Eagle and Dusek's, said both restaurants will have a permanent tap handle dedicated to Rouben's beers (which means Moody Tongue will debut at a restaurant twice honored with a Michelin star — Longman & Eagle).

"We can't get his beer fast enough," Wentworth said. "He approaches craft beer differently than a lot of people. I've had a lot of his stuff he's never released that's mind bending."

He cited a bottle of white truffle saison that Rouben handed out to his chef collaborators as a holiday gift.

"It can make it easier or more challenging for a chef to pair those flavors (in Rouben's beers) with food ingredients," Wentworth said. "I welcome the challenge. It's cool to say, 'Here's someone that's crafted this libation with all these flavors, and I'm going to pair it with these flavors I'm creating.'"

Rouben said he plans to be transparent as possible about the flavors in his beers. The first two, for instance, eschew the current trend of names that invoke robots, werewolves and ninjas. Instead, they're called Cold-Pressed Paw Paw Belgian Golden and Crushed Green Coriander Wit.

Each beer will be named for the process behind the beer (cold pressed, crushed), its central ingredient (pawpaw, green coriander) and style (Belgian golden, wit).

"You want people to know what they'll be tasting before it's in the glass," Rouben said.

The bars carrying Moody Tongue will include Fountainhead, Small Bar on Division Street and The Aviary.